How to hire a video production company: questions to ask

Choosing a video agency starts before you contact anyone. A one or two page brief, or a formal request for proposals (RFP) if your procurement rules require one, gives every company the same information and makes their answers comparable. It also forces your own team to agree on what success looks like.

A useful brief answers five questions: who the film is for, what you want them to think or do afterwards, which stories or programmes it should draw on, where it will be shown, and when it must be ready. Add your approval process and any donor branding rules. Leave the creative treatment open, because that is what you are asking companies to propose.

• Audience and objective
• Programmes, locations and people likely to feature
• Channels and versions needed (event screening, social media, website)
• Deadline and key dates
• Who approves the script, rough cut and final cut
• Branding, visibility and language requirements

Decide how you will score proposals before they arrive. United Nations procurement guidance notes that weighted scoring is typically used when buying services, and that under an RFP the technical proposal is evaluated first and separately from the financial one.¹ The same guidance says the financial offer is typically given between 15 and 50 percent of the weight, so that quality carries more of the decision.¹

For video work, sensible technical criteria include understanding of the brief, the proposed story approach, relevant past work, the team who will actually do the filming and editing, and the plan for consent and logistics. Ask for a short treatment, not a full script. Requiring free creative work in advance is unfair to small companies and rarely tells you much.

Showreels are edited highlights, and they rarely show how a company works with clients or participants. Ask instead to see two or three complete films made for organisations like yours, and ask what the company did on each one. Then ask for references and call them.

When you speak to a reference, ask practical questions: was the film delivered on time, how many revision rounds did it take, how did the crew behave with participants and partners, and would they hire the company again. In our own practice, we find that how a team handles problems tells you more than its best piece of work.

• Who exactly will direct, film and edit our project?
• Can we see two complete films for similar clients?
• What would you do differently on this brief, and why?
• How many revision rounds are included, and at which stages?
• Can we speak to two recent clients?

Any company filming real people on your behalf represents you. Bond describes informed consent as the cornerstone of ethical content gathering, and says contributors should understand why the content is gathered, what it will be used for, and how and where it will be shared.² Ask to see the consent form a company uses and whether it is available in the languages of the people being filmed.

Ask how long consent lasts. Bond's guidelines suggest telling contributors that their image and story will be used for a specified period, normally three to five years, after which they will be asked again.² Ask too where signed forms are kept. Consent records contain names and contact details and must be stored securely.² Finally, ask what the crew does when filming children, and who on the team is responsible for safeguarding.

Many organisations assume that paying for a film means they own it. That is not always true. In the United Kingdom, for example, the person or organisation that created a work is usually its first copyright owner, not the commissioner, unless you agree otherwise in writing.³ Rules differ from country to country, so the safest course everywhere is to settle ownership in the contract.

Ask whether you will own the finished film outright or receive a licence, and for how long and in which territories. Ask who owns the raw footage and photographs, whether the company may use extracts in its own showreel, and how licensed music is covered. A music licence that expires after a year can force you to take a film offline.

Agree the deliverables in writing before filming starts. List each version, its length, its aspect ratio and its languages. Ask whether you will receive the project files, the raw footage and a set of still images, and in what format and for how long the company keeps an archive.

Build accessibility into the brief rather than adding it at the end. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative advises planning for accessibility from the very start of a project, and notes that integrated description needs to be included in the script before filming.⁴ Ask for accurate captions in every language, and a transcript. Captions make speech and other audio available to people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, and W3C notes that accessible media brings benefits to everyone in a variety of situations.⁴

Ask who is responsible for permits, travel and field coordination, and make it explicit in the contract. In Rwanda, documentary and fiction filming in public requires a photography and video shooting permit, applied for on IremboGov and provided by the Ministry of Youth, with a stated processing time of four days.⁵ A company that has not built this into its timeline may lose filming days.

Ask how the crew will travel, who will translate interviews, and what happens if weather, security or a cancelled meeting disrupts a filming day. A good production partner will have answered most of these questions in its proposal without being asked.

• Brief or RFP with audience, objective, versions and deadline
• Scoring criteria agreed before proposals arrive
• Two complete sample films reviewed
• Two references called
• Consent form and safeguarding approach checked
• Ownership of footage, music and photos agreed in writing
• Deliverables, captions and file handover listed in the contract
• Permits and field logistics assigned